


Hive Mind

by zombiesbecrazy



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: All the batmans, Gen, Hive minds, Mentions of alcohol, attempts at humour but the author isn't overly funny so they probably fail, batfamcontentwar2018, halloween party, many Batmans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 14:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16451909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiesbecrazy/pseuds/zombiesbecrazy
Summary: Clark had been working on his Halloween costume off and on for months, and he was pretty proud of how authentic it was.





	Hive Mind

Clark had first had the idea months ago, after the weirdly fun double date that he and Lois had gone on with Bruce and Selina. He had been working on his costume off and on for months, and he was pretty proud of how authentic it was. He had used his own black cape and base layer from the fortress, but he actually scavenged some pieces from some of Bruce’s suits that he been damaged in battle or had been replaced on the Watchtower. And he may have had stolen an empty belt out of the Cave last week when he stopped by as well. The belt was just lying there unattended. Bruce should have put it away if he didn’t want someone to steal it, really.

Why hadn’t he ever dressed up as Batman for Halloween before? He had dressed up at Superman before; in the cheapest and ugliest costume he could find. It was terrible and he loved every minute of it. He wasn’t Superman. He was _ClarkKentDressedUpASuperman_. It was a very different thing and no one at the Planet had suspected a thing.

When he arrived at the Watchtower for the League Party however, he was a little disappointed, because while he knew his costume wasn’t original, he hadn’t expected this.

Every single person there was dressed as Batman.

Including Bruce.

Once Clark got over his original shock, he grinned big and bright, because it was absolutely hilarious.

Clark wished that he had been the mastermind behind it, but it was purely coincidental. Everywhere he looked, there were different versions of Batman cosplay. J’onn had shapeshifted into an exact replica of the current Batman design. Dinah was wearing a Batman body suit with her usual stockings. All the Green Lanterns had glowing green bat suits made out of their constructs. Oliver was wearing the worst Batman costume imaginable, complete with misshapen foam muscles, playing darts with batarangs with Barry, who had forgone the cape, but everything else looked dead on. Hawkman and Hawkgirl had cut holes in their capes to fit their wings through. There were close to 30 Batman’s in the room and they were all doing their best Batman voices, low and gravely sounds filling Clark’s head.

He was finally cornered by Bruce at the punch table, who was holding a cup in his hand that Clark knew was never going to be drank. “Did you arrange this?” Bruce asked at him.

“I wish.” Clark tapped the symbol on his chest lightly. “Were you aware that the bat stands for a bat? I heard that somewhere.”

Bruce shook his head at him slightly. “Shut up, Clark.”

Laughing, Clark helped himself to a cup of punch and grabbed a brownie off the table. Barry always brought the best brownies. After swallowing, he nodded towards Bruce’s outfit. “You know that you are supposed to dress up for Halloween parties, don’t you?”

“I am dressed up.”

“As regular Batman so it doesn’t count.” There was something off about Bruce’s suit though. It looked familiar but it didn’t fit quite right. Clark’s eyes lit up when he realised what it was. “Wait. Is that Dick’s Batman uniform?”

“It still counts as being dressed up.” Bruce strained against the costume, and pulled at the material against his neck like Clark had seen Bruce Wayne do with his tie hundreds of times. “Mostly because it is much too small.”

“How did you even get into it?

“Took out a lot of the armor plates. And the boots are mine.” Someone caught Bruce’s eye across the room, and he nodded. “Excuse me. Shayera needs me for a moment.” Clark nodded and took another sip of his drink. Bruce walked off to talk to Hawkgirl, and Clark pulled out his phone to make a call.

The recipient went into a full conversation instead of greeting when the call connected, and Clark smiled. “You know, it’s hypocritical to lecture about secret identities and then FaceTime my civilian phone when you are suited up.” Dick looked at his screen a little longer, and watched as his eyes flicked between the caller id and the face he was seeing in from of him. “Wait… Clark?”

“Happy Halloween, Dick.”

“You too! You look amazing.”

“So do you.” He couldn’t be sure of what Dick’s costume was based on face alone, but based on the blue and green make up and glitter alone, it was giving Clark the impression that Dick may have been dressed up as a peacock. “How’s the Titans party?” There were two very distinct Halloween parties in the hero community; the League one and the Titans one. The only requirement of the League party was that you had to have been a League member at some point and not currently evil. The Titans party had different restrictions - you either had to have ever been part of one of the youth teams or be older than 12 but younger than Roy Harper - but rumour had it that it was a lot wilder. Clark wouldn’t know because he was never invited. He had been told there were firm rules too – once you arrived at the party you couldn’t leave Titans Tower until morning, there was no flying allowed and two of the original Titans always stayed sober in case of emergency.

Bruce hated the Titans party, but Clark and Diana thought it was fine because at least they were being somewhat responsible about it. Clark did wonder if he’s opinion would change when Jon was old enough to go but that was still a few years off.

“You know that what happens at the Titans party stays at the Titans party.” His eyes darted off screen, and he laughed. “But off the record, it is a fantastic mess. Poor choices abound. There will be so many regretful young heroes in the morning. I can’t wait.”

“You and Wally on babysitting duty this year?” Being unable to get drunk due to his speedster metabolism, Wally always volunteered to supervise the party and the rest of them rotated who was the other designated chaperone with him.

“And Roy, unofficially.”

“Of course.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the call, but what’s up?”

Right, the entire reason that Clark had called. “Did you see Bruce’s costume?”

“Did he dress up this year? That’s a first.”

“Yep.” Clark flips his camera around to sneakily show him Bruce’s costume. Shayera had walked away and Bruce looked like he was actually trying to blend into the wall to hide from anyone else.

“No way.” Dick’s hand covered his mouth and he was giggling. “Is he really dressed up as me?”

“Sure is.”

“I’m honoured. He better not… Gar! You can’t be an elephant in here with this many people!” Dick rolled his eyes good naturedly. “Clark, I gotta go reign in some idiots. Have a good night! Take some pictures of B! I never want to unsee that!”

Clark chuckled as Dick hung up, snapped some pictures of Bruce from across the room, and then went to go play darts with Barry and Oliver.

The party had been going great for an hour more until Diana rushed into the room. Her Batman costume had bare arms so that she could wear her gauntlets, but her cape looked like it was one of Bruce’s own. Maybe Clark hadn’t been the only one pilfering from Bruce’s own stash. Clark’s thought’s were interrupted when she called out “We have incoming!” She had been on monitor duty for the first half of the party.

“Who is it?”

“I do not know, but they are coming fast.”

Batman went to the consol on the side of the room and a ship appeared on the window screen and the Green Lanterns all let out a collective groan at the sight of who it was.

Bruce and Diana both straighten up and Clark looked around the room. Most of the room was immediately at attention. Diana pulled out her shield from under the cape. “That bad? Battle positions?”

Hal shook his head, taking his eyes off the screen to look at Clark. “No, but…”

“I hate those guys.” Guy took another drink of his beer, ignoring the pointed stare that Bruce was giving him. Clark agreed with Bruce. In the face of an imminent attack, they should probably not keep drinking.

“They are peaceful, but very annoying,” Hal agreed with Guy. “They are Fantanglians. They are really far from home.” he explained to the others in the room. “They are a hive mind.”

“Then we have to engage in Procedure 326 that we need to follow when faced with hive assimilation threats.” Bruce started to type to pull up the plans to refresh anyone who needed it, but Hal shook his head in disagreement. “They aren’t trying to assimilate us.”

“How do you know?”

“They just want to talk about how great being in a hive mind is and how we should become one.”

“What?” Barry was staring at Hal, mouth hanging open. “They are… recruiting? Isn’t that the same as assimilating?”

“Sort of, but not really.” John put down his bowl of snacks on a table nearby. “They don’t want to recruit us to join _their_ hive mind. They just think all planets would benefit from it. They have the technology to create new hive minds independent from their own, so they volunteer the service to worlds if they want it.”

“I can sort of see their point. Their world had zero war. No conflict at all.” Jessica added before noticing that everyone was staring at her and she looked down quickly. “Not that I want to be a hive mind.”

“They want us to form our own planet-wide cult.” Bruce muttered.

“That’s not how they see it, but yes.” Hal waved at the ship on the screen, which had  arrived but was in a holding pattern. It had now sent out a call to the Watchtower and was awaiting a response. “We can just go out there and tell them that Earth isn’t interested and they will go away, but they are going to try and sales pitch us first, so it’ll take a while. John and I can handle it.” Bruce nodded and typed in a response to say that they would meet in neutral space between the ships.

“I have an idea.” Clark turned to Bruce, who had already started shaking his head as soon as Clark had started talking. “You aren’t going to like it, but it’s a good one and they will leave faster if it works.”

Bruce tried to cross his arms but it looked like it wouldn’t work with Dick’s suit being too tight across the shoulders and just dropped them to the side and made fists with his hands instead. “No, Clark.”

Clark smiled back which just made Bruce frown harder, if possible. “Yes, Clark. It’s a great idea. And a permanent one. They won’t come back to try again.”

Bruce clenched his jaw and was silent for a few moments before just shaking his head. “Fine.” He stalked off, presumably to the docking bay to prepare the space oxygen masks.

“What’s happening now?” asked Barry.

“We’re going to go out and meet them. All of us.” Clark started to walk after Bruce, and motioned for everyone to follow. “As Batman.”

* * *

All things considered, convincing the Fantanglians that they were a hive mind of Batmen was surprisingly easy.

Bruce had taken the lead, standing on the green platform construct that John for him, addressing the Fantanglians as the primary Batman, but they had taken turns speaking with the same monosyllable delivery of words, with the help of J’onn dictating who’s turn it was and when. They had been lucky that everyone in the League had been practicing their own Batman impressions for years as a running joke. The similar clothes also helped, but if there had been any doubt lingering, it seemed to be washed away with how the Fantanglians watched them seamlessly accommodate those of them who did not fly without issue; it was something that they had done so often that they had a standard ‘buddy system’ for the non-fliers.

In the end, the Fantanglians were pleased that they had found another collective such as themselves and left without much delay, eager to move on to the next planet on their list. They promised to keep in touch, but let the Batmen know that they were probably going to be much too busy to return to visit in person, just as Clark had predicted.

They returned to the Watchtower and the party continued back into full swing, but Clark noticed that Bruce had vanished. Clark wandered through a couple rooms before finding that Bruce had taken over Diana’s monitor duty and was typing up a report about their encounter, which looked to Clark like it was overwritten for the amount of time that they had actually spent with the Fantanglians. Bruce didn’t acknowledge him sitting down beside him, but kept typing away.

“That is what I call the trick part of trick or treating.” Clark said when Bruce finally closed the report.

“I hate you,” sniffed Bruce in reply.

“No you don’t.” Clark handed Bruce a pumpkin shaped cookie that he had grabbed off one of the tables before he had going. It looked like an Alfred contribution to the snacks. Bruce glared at him and took a bite. It looked like a struggle to swallow. “Not going to take off the cowl?”

“I can’t take it off without taking off the entire suit. It’s too tight. I can barely breathe.”

“You get points for commitment to the look, I’ll give you that.”

Bruce hummed in agreement and then nodded towards Clark’s costume. “Nice belt.”

“You knew I took it.”

“It’s why I left it out.”

“You orchestrated this whole army of Batmen, didn’t you?” There was no response, but he saw the smallest smidge of a smile emerge from Bruce. “I don’t know why people think that you have no sense of humour.”

“Me neither. I’m a riot.”

“And modest, too.” Clark pulled out his phone and opened his camera. “Selfie for Dick?” Bruce grumbled, but leaned closer so Clark took a picture of the two of them, and then a second one when he turned his head at the last second and planted a kiss on the side of Bruce’s cowl as the camera snapped. Bruce shoved him away quickly. “Now go away. I’m working.” Clark laughed and walked away as he hit send on his phone.

“Happy Halloween, Batman.”

“You too, Batman.”

 


End file.
